Intuition - Peter An

The ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning.
A thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning. (Lexico Dictionary)

Under self-assessment regarding one’s spiritual inventory, the workbook asks whether or not “I am comfortable with knowing things without knowing precisely how I know them.” (Achieving Spiritual Resilience)
Knowing things without knowing precisely how one knows them; like the other definitions given above, intuition is a means to understand without reason.

Psychology Today tells us that intuitions or hunches are “actually formed on the basis of past experience and cumulative knowledge,” rather than a clueless gravitation of one’s reason.
The article continues: “Intuition is essentially the brain on autopilot, performing the actions of processing information without the person's conscious awareness that it is operating. It is nonconscious thinking.”

“The automatic information processing that underlies intuition can be seen in something people experience daily.”
For example, driving without thinking about driving.

Such nonconscious processes occur in decision making as well, such as following one’s intuition. (Psychology Today)

In most Christina teachings, intuition is directly related to the reasoning of God.
While contemporary Christian teachings mention intuition very little to almost none at all, we can observe some Christian perspectives from the earlier philosophical debates.
St. Augustine links intuition with the mind of God, that “man contemplates them in the exercise of his higher reason and finds in the incommutabilis veritas the source, measure, and guarantee of all his particular truth.”
St. Thomas Aquinas describes intuition as an “intellectual grasp” of things, sharing in God’s view “of the whole course of time at once,” for God exists outside of time.

Such is a contract between intellect and reason; knowledge vs. reasoning.
Obtaining knowledge without reason is called an a priori knowledge, namely, what is known in itself, rather than through relations.
St. Thomas Aquinas writes, “A truth can come into the mind in two ways, namely as known in itself, and as known through another. What is known in itself is like a principle, and is perceived immediately by the mind....It is a firm and easy quality of mind which sees into principles.”

St. Bonaventure mentions intuition in the form of “intuitive intellectual cognition of material and singular existents,” meaning that humans, as rational beings, have the ability to intuitively understand the genus and species of beings in a particular form. (encyclopedia.com)(Stand to Reason)

“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him.” (Ephesians 1:17)
“For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk blamelessly, guarding the paths of justice and preserving the way of his faithful ones. Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path; for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; prudence will watch over you; and understanding will guard you. It will save you from the way of evil, from those who speak perversely, who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil; those whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways.” (Proverbs 2:6-15)

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